Mercenaries is a video game franchise published by LucasArts and developed by Pandemic Studios. As of 2023, there are two Mercenaries games available.
Games
Every game in the series is an action-adventure game and chronologically runs as follows: Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and Mercs Inc.
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (2005)
After over 50 years of military tension, the aging President Choi Kim of North Korea began to embrace the "Sunshine Policy" of South Korea, reviving hopes of peaceful reunification; however, the North Korean military became disgruntled with the turn of events, fearing a dramatic loss of their power. Their leader, the brilliant and ruthless Choi Song, believed that his father, President Kim, was losing sight of "North Korea's true destiny." Song led an army of insurgents into a ceremony celebrating a road map to the reunification of Korea. Both North and South Korean political leaders were shot and killed, and Song himself shot his father dead without hesitation. This started a Second Korean War, which was won by an allied group of nations. However, Song and those loyal to him stage an insurrection as the various factions start to fall apart. Following this, the player character - either Chris Jacobs, Jennifer Mui, or Mattias Nilsson - is called in to hunt down Song and his men during the chaos.
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (2008)
The game features three playable characters, all from the original game. Three years after the Second Korean War, the player character from the first game has moved to Venezuela for more work, but is betrayed by a client named Ramon Solano, and they spend the rest of the game hunting Solano down.
Mercs Inc (cancelled) Mercs Inc was a cancelled third game in the series developed by Danger Close Games. It was supposed to be the sequel to Playground of Destruction and World in Flames. It was a multiplayer third-person shooter.
The game was first rumored to be in development by Pandemic Studios as either Project X or Y which were rumored to be based on the Mercenaries franchise. Footage of the game was first leaked onto the internet on November 24, 2009, and was a multiplayer trailer of the game. The game was then officially announced by Electronic Arts less than a day later though without a proper platform or release date. The announcement of the game came less than a week after the closure of Pandemic Studios by Electronic Arts as it had been in development there under the name Project Y. The game was being developed by remaining Pandemic Studio staff members located at EA Los Angeles until the company was closed down in 2009.
Mercenaries 3: No Limits (cancelled) After Pandemic Studios shut down, a small demo was released. Despite this, EA has inexplicably continued to renew their ownership of the Mercenaries 3 website since 2007, as the website was renewed again on February 22, 2023, and set to expire on February 26, 2024.
Gameplay
The player is deposited in a vast "sandbox" environment, free to pick up missions, perform side tasks, collect items, or employ game mechanics in exhibition. As the world is a sandbox, the player can choose to do any of these activities at any time. In fact, one can level all of the buildings in the game world, including the faction HQs. Buildings are usually restored after an extended time away from the area, the player's death, or re-loading the game. Also, the player can cause wanton destruction in many small outposts and strongholds occupied by and restricted to faction members only. However, excessive rampaging is discouraged by the reduction of the attacked faction's disposition towards the player, and the murders of civilians.